After winning contracts from the U.S. Air Force, a small Wisconsin-based company went bankrupt. Now, a Chinese businessman is poised to take control of its revolutionary engine.
Dick Rutan, a swashbuckling legend in the aviation community, was sitting in his office at the Mojave airport in the Southern California desert when two engineers walked in with a big idea.
It was the spring of 2005, and Steven Weinzierl and Michael Fuchs had just developed a new piston engine that was both highly efficient and surprisingly quiet. While most small plane engines run on aviation gasoline — which is expensive and difficult to access — their innovative use of diesel made the engine more fuel efficient, cheaper, and longer lasting. Weinzierl and Fuchs were hoping Rutan, who piloted the first nonstop flight around the world — a nine-day feat in 1986 — would help them find funding.
Rutan, who has a soft spot for aviation startups, agreed not only to find investors for them, but also to test pilot the engine himself.
“It was absolutely incredible,” recalls Rutan. “It was silent. I was so excited about this thing. I thought, at long last, an e
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